Water footprint assessment for Chinese textiles manufacturing sector

The industrial manufacturing of textiles is water intensive. The textiles manufacturing sector is one of the largest freshwater consumption sectors, and also is one of the largest wastewater discharge sectors in China. This study aims at assessing Chinese textiles manufacturing sector’s water footprints (WFs) and investigating the influencing factors of them based on WF methodology and Kaya identities. The results showed that the demanded blue operational WF and the actual blue operational WF increased from 1996 to 2011 though there was a transitory decline in 2008. The peak value of demanded blue operational WF and actual blue operational WF was 10.8 Gm3/yr and 7.9 Gm3/yr respectively and appeared in 2007. The original grey operational WF increased faster and much larger than the residuary grey operational WF in the selected temporal interval. WF productivity increased continuously from 1996 to 2011, especially in the period from 2007 to 2011. The scale enlargement of the textiles manufacturing sector is the promotion factor for the increasing of actual blue operational WF and residuary grey operational WF. The decrease of WF intensity is the main inhibited factor. The inhibiting effect of pollutants removal on the increase of residuary grey operational WF is larger than that of water reuse on the increase of actual blue operational WF